La Rotisserie de Renard
by John Bigboote
Summary: Maria gets the half-off deal.


IT WAS TIME FOR THE NOBLE OWL TO BE ROYALLY PLUCKED. The sound of massive chains rattled through the castle's inverted alchemy lab. Flies the size of men buzzed around the columns supporting the marble walls. Maggots the size of sheep squirmed across the floor that should have been the ceiling. Swarms of insects fell from the festering bowels of a colossal demon.

Beezelbub dangled off the ground with columns surrounding him like scaffolds. His chains kept him restrained while barely holding his grotesquely decaying body together. Maria sprinted left and right between the columns, gliding weightlessly in front of his enormous deformed face and leaping off the backs of the giant flies like they were floating trampolines. Each beast she stomped in mid-air fell straight down and crushed some of the maggots below.

She was light, slender, and incredibly nimble for a mortal. Her thigh-length gown gave her legs complete freedom of movement. Her silhouette was lean and curved only in ways that made her more agile, with her waist tapered as narrow as a dart in the middle. The only thing about her that wasn't elegantly compact was the long golden sash swirling through the air as she jumped.

Girls like her were good at hiding all the meat on their bones.

She dodged a giant swinging arm and a buzzing demon fly with intricately timed flips. She made her way up one of the columns in a series of zig-zagging jumps until she nearly reached the ceiling. Combining French grace with Japanese ninjutsu, she leapt off of the marble entablature with a diving kick aimed perfectly between Beezelbub's eyes.

She never reached her target. The giant caught her by her legs as she was descending. His other hand wrapped around her torso and gripped her like she was a doll, or a pair of drumsticks attached to a chicken breast.

Beezelbub decisively ended the battle by ripping her in half while she was still struggling and making horrified noises. Her narrow waist betrayed her by splitting apart and spilling its bounty. Her green dress changed to a deep tinge of red.

The giant shook her two halves over his maw as he immediately devoured the gushing blood, the flailing guts, and all the other wonderful little things that made her Maria. She'd thought she was an expert demon hunter who could stand toe to toe with any Belmont. She'd thought she could challenge any of the horrors conjured by Dracula's castle with all of her skills and all of the powers of her guardian spirits. But tonight she was only a fine champagne that had aged about two decades specifically for Beezelbub's enjoyment.

When he was done filling his mouth with Maria's innards, he tossed the two empty pieces to the ground for the maggots to pick at. A vibrant waterfall of brutality surged down his esophagus and collected in his decomposing stomach. It had been eons since the last time he feasted on something so fresh, and it triggered a diabolical reaction deep in his gullet. His stomach churned and toiled as it digested the flesh and stripped out its essence. Stripped out the gene.

All of Maria's stolen energy was absorbed back into Beezelbub's body to extend its horrible existence. The remaining makeup of her soul was shipped to his worm-infested bowels so it could be processed.

Seconds later, a different kind of hell-spawn dropped out of the rotting crater in Beezelbub's gut along with all the flies and maggots and landed on the marble floor with a grotesque splash. Curled on her side and slowly coming to her senses, she seemed like nothing more than a puddle of bile in the shape of a woman at first.

The smooth ridges on her back twitched and unfurled into a set of long clear wings that were warped like a fairy's. She climbed to her feet as the grime flowed off her features, revealing her true beautiful hideousness. She had mandibles for lips, claws for fingers and toes, long insect scales for hair, and a slender body molded out of snowy larva carapace that mimicked the contours of human anatomy. Evil had joined forces with evolution to create something that could be both alluring and terrifying.

The cruel insect demoness glanced toward the ground and clicked her mandibles to say "_Tsk, tsk_." The lower portions of her previous self were lying next to her with the rear of her short black tights facing up and a bit of spinal wreckage showing.

Her life as Maria had met an unpleasant end. She was determined to do better as Jezebel, Consort of the Flies.

GAME OVER

* * *

_Author's note: I couldn't make up my mind if I should write a "Maria Gets Corrupted" fanfic or a "Maria Gets Eaten" fanfic, so I wrote this._


End file.
